9/11 Families Call for Immediate Acknowledgement of Civilian Deaths in Iraq and a Cessation of Civilian Deaths

NEW YORK – October 23 – The following statement may be attributed to Colleen Kelly, a founding member of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows

The information made public by Wikileaks (NY Times, A Grim Report…,10/22/10) emphasizes that 9/11 families have much in common with Iraqi civilians. In the more than seven long years of warfare in Iraq, thousands upon thousands of civilians have died at the hands of Iraqi military personnel as well as allied forces. Many of these civilian deaths were 1) under-reported, 2) not acknowledged, and 3) not investigated.

September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows was formed around the core
issue of civilian casualties: We did not then and we do not now condone the killing of civilians in other lands. Our organization was founded to oppose any action that would necessitate the deaths of civilians. Worse, still, is the denial of any value of these Iraqi lives, through the concealment of their very existence.

For 9/11 families, the rough number 2,996 was rounded up to 3000 through addition. For the Iraqi people, their numbers were alluded to as a subtraction vastly different from any attempt at reality.

As people who are well aware of the suffering, we say stop killing civilians now and take responsibility for those who lives are already lost.

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